Games from my First-place tournament!

 Hi everyone,

Last Sunday I played in a large scholastic tournament in Glendale CA, and I achieved my best score ever in one of those tournaments: 4.5 out of 5! (My best before was 3/5, see those games here) My score and tiebreak points were enough to earn me 1st place. There was one other kid that had 4.5 also; luckily I avoided playing him, lol. I was the third-highest rated player there; my only draw was with the top rated player. However, there are a ton of kids that are underrated, so taking it is not so easy! Also, my USCF went up from 1584 to 1637 after this tournament (my highest ever so far). 

The tournament consisted of around 170 players, in 5 sections. You can see the crosstables on the USCF website here:

The time control was G/25 d5, except the first game was G/30 d5 (we didn't realize it was supposed to be 25 if you were using the delay lol). 

Alright, without any further ado, here are the games from the tournament! 

Round 1

A very easy game, but my opponent was inexperienced (this was only his second tournament.) He went on to win 3 out of the last 4, and raised his rating to 1275.

Round 2

My opponent was a bit careless in this game, but he won every other game in the tournament taking 4th place with 4/5. Nice job!

Round 3

At this point, I knew I was going to have to play the top-rated player, who was also 3-0. I had a 1-2 score against him before this (2 draws and one loss) and was looking for a win this time as this was my first time having white against him! However, we agreed to a draw on move 23 in a position that I think was slightly better for me, but oh well, better safe than sorry!

Round 4

Jean drew his last game with the kid that finished at 2nd with 4.5, taking 3rd.

Round 5

My last round game was with the tournament's second highest rated player, although I didn't know his rating at the time. I've discovered you often play better chess when you don't know what your opponent's rating is!

Like I said, Jean (3.5/4) and Gabriel (4/4) drew in the last round, which was great for me since I clinched first!

Hope you enjoyed the games! Any comments or suggestions, feel free to post below. 

--Maroon5fan